Michael Washington, 67, who believes he contracted hepatitis C from the Las Vegas facility owned by the Indian doctor. (AP)

Washington, March 6: An Indian American doctor is at the centre of what is emerging to be America’s biggest medical malpractice scandal.

As many as 40,000 people may have been infected with the deadly hepatitis C virus or HIV from a Las Vegas clinic, owned by Dr Dipak Desai, which has been reusing syringes and medical vials for nearly four years.

Desai, who has been practising medicine in Nevada for 28 years, is an alumnus of Gujarat University and later did his medical residency at the Catholic Medical Center in New York.

He is said to be an influential political fixer in Nevada, having made financial contributions to the election campaigns of President George W. Bush and former vice-president Al Gore, among others.

After Nevada governor Jim Gibbons won the election in 2006, Desai was a member of his transition team. He also served on the governor’s health care working group.

Local TV crews are now descending on his luxurious home with a swimming pool, spa and multiple fireplaces, for which Desai and his wife paid $3.4 million (Rs 13.6 crore) with what may now turn out to be tainted money.

The scandal has created a frenzy among lawyers who have begun chasing ambulances and taking out television and newspaper advertisements seeking out infected patients in what could be a huge class action suit against the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada. Desai owns 65 per cent of the medical facility.

Nevada authorities have issued a health notification urging thousands of people who have used Desai’s facilities to get tested for infections.

So far, six cases of hepatitis C have been confirmed. Six of his facilities have been closed.

The scandal has been developing since September last year when a patient, Michael Washington, 67, who had undergone a routine colon exam at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada reported that his urine had turned black and he was losing weight.

Washington’s illness turned out to be the tip of an iceberg. In January this year, health authorities in Las Vegas linked a rise in hepatitis C infections to Desai’s clinics.

After health inspectors noticed staff at Desai’s clinic sharing the same syringe to repeatedly extract medicine from bottles and then treating multiple patients, it was discovered that the management had ordered the staff to reuse vials and syringes.

The media in Las Vegas have now dug up evidence that Desai was once fined $2,500 for deceptive advertising, claiming that all gastroenterologists on his staff were certified by the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners.

In what his victims will now see as a cutting irony, Desai was a member of this board which investigates allegations against doctors. He also served as chairman of the board’s investigative committee.

The medical business empire that Desai successfully built in Nevada includes several locations of the Gastroenterology Center of Nevada and the Spanish Hills Surgical Center in Las Vegas in addition to the Endoscopy Center of southern Nevada.

Desai was also a member of the board of two banks: Nevada First Bank and Bank of George.

The National Institute on Money in State Politics, which tracks the influence of money on state-level elections in the US, has compiled statistics that at least one of Desai’s medical enterprises has been funding politicians in Nevada for a decade.

Although a registered Republican, the doctor has patronised both Republicans and Democrats.

Desai has given money to bigwigs in national politics from Nevada such as Harry Reid, the leader of Democrats in the Senate, Senator John Ensign, a Republican, and Dean Heller, a Republican member of the US House of Representatives.

An amusing but cynical twist in the history of Desai’s political contributions is that he financed both Shelley Berkley, the Democrat from Nevada in the US House of Representatives and Don Chairez, the Republican who fought against her in an election.